


You show me Stars (I am home in your arms)

by Sitamun



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Footnotes, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love Confessions, M/M, Wingfic, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:36:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21649921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sitamun/pseuds/Sitamun
Summary: Aziraphale, an Angel of the Lord, guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden, had been completely intoxicated for weeks on the emotions of his demon because they had been a mirror of his own.Returned love is the felicity he tries to achieve for humans most often, a favourite of his, always without a miracle, too, simultaneously a reward and compensation for being forced out of the Garden, simply because they enjoyed something as small as an apple (from a tree which really had been way too obvious in the middle of the street).And this was exactly what brought him into this state of never-ending drunkenness. Returned love. Something he wouldn’t have thought possible for himself.Because he loved a demon.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	You show me Stars (I am home in your arms)

**Author's Note:**

> Oneshot was inspired by You show me Stars by Chris Mann - his songs are basically written for soft husbands. Listening to him while reading is highly recommended <3  
> (Or just the whole playlist ♥ https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0TES8N1UshsRqmf9IgJ7YP?si=sl7tcP53RFCDFyblODtRew)

* * *

  
  
Aziraphale is alone and the fact that the addition of a, ‘by way of exception’ would be entirely justified, has him almost chuckling to himself. It’s a funny and relieving feeling in equal measures, in comparison to all those millennia, where he spent far too many long periods of time, all alone.  
In the few weeks since Armageddon failed to happen, he has forgotten how being alone worked.  
  
He left the demon on the couch in his bookshop, lounging and totally forgetting that most of his joints did not work the way the position he’s in, would require it. Completely out of everything and filled with so much bliss, for a demon it’s honestly outrageously brash[1].  
  
Aziraphale breathes in. Out. Once again.  
  
Today, this very moment, is a test. An experiment to test a hypothesis from which he neither knows its exact wording nor what he wants to achieve with the however formed answer.  
He is alone here, thousands of kilometres away from London, covered in a blink, to be able to sober up.  
To be honest, the angel does not know any other way to describe, even now, as each breath cleanses his head with clear, ice cold burning air.  
  
Breathe in. Breathe out. And from the beginning.  
  
Each day since the failed end of the world and then the new beginning was a drinking spree, far beyond what Crowley and himself were able to drink over the centuries[2], only that his wine cellar stayed fully untouched. Not a single drop missing, except for one evening on which they collectively only emptied two or three bottles. Very humble and very sober for their standards.

On each of those days Crowley has been with him, or he with Crowley.  
Aziraphale could count the moments he didn’t see his friend with each blink. If he persuaded his body[3] to manage just fine with less or completely without blinking and he wasted too many frivolous miracles on explaining to his eyes why they would not dry out … well, after 6000 years of secluded affection and weeks after their official execution[4] no one could actually accuse him of being protective of his best friend.

  
Of course, he didn’t leave Crowley on his couch without any note. There’s a little text right next to his sunglasses with the exact information about where he was, and an admittedly rather vague, but as truthful as possible, information on the duration of his absence.  
And because he was sure this wouldn’t be enough[5], he included one of his small down feathers. Then, because it still feels not like it is enough, he pulled a long scapular from each wing, putting them directly in the right hand, that is resting on the chest of the demon.  
That way they should radiate enough of his essence to convince the sleeping demon of his closeness and at least calm him down if he should wake up before he returns.  
Without … well, panic gasping and the loss of oxygen is, even for a supernatural brain[6], not helpful to calm down.

Metaphorically speaking[7], Crowley turned into Aziraphale’s oxygen and the angel is certain this sentiment is mutual, if the amount of emotions the demon is dumping on him is anything to go by.  
Which is probably not Crowley’s intent.  
Aziraphale doesn’t believe his friend to have the slightest idea of what he is doing; otherwise he would reign everything in rather rigorously. The quantity may have taken this enormous climb after the Apocalypse but the quality is so much finer and more precious, its craftmanship on the level of a seasoned master, not from a layman still stumbling through the basic steps, only weeks in into his apprenticeship.  
Not that Aziraphale would appreciate it any less but he probably wouldn’t founder under it all[8].  
Crowley is a creator, an artist – there is no such thing as ‘only a bit’. Something Aziraphale always enjoyed about him but presumedly never thought it as open as this, never mind in a full sentence.  
But because he is always miles away from ‘only a bit’, Aziraphale finds himself not in front of a little pond but a whole ocean of everything and he is drowning in it, those miles being outside of his capacities to be able to understand the breadth of the emotions continuously enclosing him.  
That is why he is on top of the highest peak of the highest mountain in the Himalaya and therefore on the highest pinnacle of the planet, as close as possible to Heaven without neither actually being there or leaving the Earth. Up here the air is too thin and the temperature too low for a human to survive longer than one minute, before both the lack of oxygen and cold shock would end their life pretty much simultaneously.  
  
Somewhere on the border of his peripheral perception he feels the darkness of a demonic essence on the planet, weakened due to the distance, but stronger in its singularity and the only reason why he can still breathe[9] are the stars in the sky. Crowley’s stars.  
For some time now it’s not enough anymore to only be able to feel him. Aziraphale must perceive him with all of his senses, aethereal and human, even now as he tries to purify his senses of him.  
  
He breathes in. Out. In. Out. And once again.  
  
He keeps his gaze fixed upon each constellation the demon explained to him so far, from the moment of their creation in his hands to their current position in relation to the expansion of the universe, all to calm the burning in his heart.  
He will only be able to extinguish it completely when he sees and smells him again, feels his body heat, hears his heart beat. To be so close that he can let his demonic essence run through his fingers as if it were a primary feather of his black wings that he can see shimmering through the dimensions.  
  
The angel tries to concentrate, waits for the moment he is finally sobered up enough to have clear thoughts.  
  
The last weeks have been Heaven on earth[10], each day finally spent at Crowley’s side, a feast with the most delightful dishes of luck, hope and love. Not of divine nature, mind you, although Her love did not disappear from him after his execution and banishment from Heaven – a safe reminder that the both of them did not work against Her Plan. His Grace has not been shaken and She is still there within him, crystal clear as on the day of his creation.  
And yet, Her shine pales in comparison to the sun that is Crowley’s love.  
Because it is love he is drowning in, he doesn’t fear this thought. He did not Fall before, he would not now.

The demon who should not be able to feel love, as the archangels briefed him before he began his apple tree duty, is not able to contain this very same emotion in his corporation and the angel at his side is fully foggy-brained and entirely drunk on it.  
And because he is basically high on his love, he doesn’t know anymore where or if at all, there is a border between Crowley and him. If the last weeks had shown him anything, then it was that Aziraphale is incapable to stand up to this almost aggressive onslaught of love.

That being considered – he _is_ an angel. The solemn purpose of his creation is love.  
To keep this in in Crowley’s words about the stars, the angel is like a supernova for and of love in its whole development process, from a stable sun to its explosion and the following black hole: He loves everything. God’s whole creation, all creatures great and small, from the tiniest pebble to every giant redwood tree, the earth and especially the stars, humanity, stumbling and growing, and the demon on his couch even more than everything together.  
He feels all the love around himself at the same time, takes it in like a sponge and in case of the demon more like the aforementioned black hole.  
There is no other phenomena which could deal with the sheer amount of it.  
  
Ironically, he compares himself with a bottomless pit and still it feels like he is overflowing.  
Could an angel really be made for feeling love if it borders on divine standards?  
It would mean twice the amount of divine love in the same being.  
Dear lord.  
  
He breathes in. Out. In. Out. Once again. In. Out. In. Out. Another five times.  
  
No, not twice as much.  
Aziraphale’s eyes jump from star to star, from nebula to nebula, more hectic than at the beginning.  
His head is free, his heart icy and his mind is just short of combusting into flames.  
He doesn’t need more than one second in this state to know with full certainty what he came here for.  
It’s not twice as much love that would be on equal level with that of the Lord.  
It’s threefold the amount.

Aziraphale, an Angel of the Lord, guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden, had been completely intoxicated for weeks on the emotions of his demon because they had been a mirror of his own.  
Returned love is the felicity he tries to achieve for humans most often, a favourite of his, always without a miracle, too, simultaneously a reward and compensation for being forced out of the Garden, simply because they enjoyed something as small as an apple[11]. And this was exactly what brought him into this state of never-ending drunkenness. Returned love. Something he wouldn’t have thought possible for himself.  
Because he loved a demon.

He breathes in deeply and forgets to breathe out.  
  
Aziraphale loves Crowley.  
  
Oh, he knows this already for quite some time, but this moment, right here on the highest peak of the realm, is the first time he allows himself to have this thought as a completely formulated sentence.  
Only three words, yes, but enough to meet his standards.  
Subject – predicate – object.  
Everything there. Grammatically complete and correct.  
And it even works if he changes subject and object. The content stays the same, its meaning identical.  
He is still alone up here, his wings flexed and widened to help him keep his balance, while the wind does not dare to do more than graze his feathers, although the angel should have been made of stone to stay in this place, and yet the feeling of intoxication returns.  
Everything in his head is spinning.  
He loves Crowley.  
This oh so small sentence is the new gravitational centre in him, everything swimming around in him with the uncertainty of 6000 years (if he is kind to himself, which he finds rather earned and legit in this moment) suddenly has a new orientation.  
Like the needle of a compass being held in the opposite direction and then released, just to see it spinning around eagerly to the north, his whole being is abruptly and like a miracle transformed.  
Even God picks up Her skirts with a smile and makes some room in him.  
  
The world turns faster for a few seconds and some more swaying in the aftershocks, all the while his mind tries to prevent the whiplash before everything stands still again.  
Marvelling about his new interior design he lets his gaze wander, sees old and new edges, finds endless walls with shelfs full of memories, journals and frames and souvenirs from oh so many moments, all screaming the same words. In this case even with very clear pronouns, an ‘I’ in first place and a ‘you’ last, the verb in between conjugated in a different person.  
He is born anew and then not, old as time and then not.  
Everything is both of them and Aziraphale smiles at the view, his heart the supernova of love for Crowley.  
  
The angel blinks and he is seeing stars again. Breathes out.

  
He blinks once more and the sky disappears.  
Thousands of kilometres covered in the mere fraction of a second and he is back again in his bookshop in London. On his couch Crowley, almost not one millimetre out of place as the moment he left him.  
Almost.  
The feathers he carefully put beneath his right hand are caressed gently by his left.  
Long, slender fingers travel along the shaft of each from the bottom to the top, over and over again, uneven and shaking.  
  
“You’re back.”  
  
Crowley doesn’t open his eyes, continues to stare on the backside of his lids but Aziraphale didn’t spend thousands of years watching out for signs he ignored himself consequently for, to _not_ be able to pinpoint them now by the smallest sign.  
The corners of his mouth twitch, his forehead, partially covered by red locks, smooths out and his hands stop shaking almost immediately.  
Aziraphale doesn’t answer but crosses the few steps separating them from each other and kneels before him.  
Golden eyes meet blue.  
  
Yes, there is his sun.  
  
“Seriously, what’s up with this shit, angel? If you’re leaving one more time and only leaving feathers and some random-ass note, I will turn this whole blessed planet up-side-down and –“  
  
Aziraphales smile is already growing the moment Crowley opens his mouth to speak.  
He knew what he would say, and legitimately so. It has been a vague message and the feathers may not have been the most explicit sign, either. He expected the rant the moment he left the bookstore with a miracle to hop over to his chosen place of purification. One of them had to disapprove with him for exposing them to this stress and anxiety and he is grateful that the demon took this role.

But that doesn’t mean that he would keep his newfound revelation to himself until said rant is over.  
Aziraphale is back in his ocean, his endless starry sky of Crowley’s love and he is drunk in seconds of the pure felicity of his newfound certainty that he loves him, an angel.  
He lifts his hand, puts it gently on Crowley’s cheek.  
It’s not the first time they touch. Time came and went with its respective customs and traditions, each with more or less touch, and their own behaviour to each other came and went with it.  
But it _could_ be the first time, the effect this small touch has on them both is not distinguishable from the actual first time. Except for the bit of Aziraphale not caring if it would have consequences.  
Oh, he would be devasted if it wouldn’t have any consequences this time.  
His finger stroked along the sharp cheekbone, wander off into his hair, followed its curves over his ear to the back of his head, letting strands fall through them before he repeats the gesture all over again.  
Crowley’s face froze in the middle of the word and for a moment his whole being with him.  
  
Aziraphale smiles, glowing like a supernova in its last moment as a star, and Crowley, creator of stars, does not advert his eyes, and the angel’s light gifts him the very second the compass needle found its aim.  
The moment, as long as eternity and over as fast as lightning across the sky, passes, the star collapses, leaves a black hole in its wake, the only thing able to swallow the infinity of emotions, exploding in front of him in golden suns.

  
“ _Angel …_ ”  
  
One word, even less than a sentence – less than he had needed – and he hears millennia of love in this one word. He laughs out loud, a painful cough and the sound of endless joy, a hiccup, a vibration from his true form, slopping over in this dimension of reality, the shaking of his wings.  
  
“ _Crowley._ ”  
  
He answers with the same tone, infused with the same heavy magnitude of love and the same airy ease of affection and _yes, we belong together forever_. Like some gravitational pull Crowley sits up and puts the feathers gently onto his lap before both his hands reach for Aziraphale’s face.  
Golden eyes fixed on his, not one second averting themselves, and Crowley shows him _everything_. Timeless aeons in the night sky and then centuries over centuries below, but never close enough together.  
  
The angel and the demon meet in the middle.  
The kiss is not a revelation, contains no new knowledge for either of them.  
Just a touch, gentle and lovely, and a vow for eternity.  
  


* * *

[1] For an angel though it should be the normal operating state and it hurts Aziraphale to say he hasn’t felt this status quo in another angel for a very long time.

[2] and that includes Crowley’s very own memorial service he drowned the Spanish Inquisition in

[3] forced, not persuaded and not even friendly, outright bullied himself into it, but that would be quite unbecoming behaviour for an angel. So he believes his own lie without much protest:

[4] Execution is the official title. He can’t bring himself to judge the behaviour of Heaven and Hell with Crowley’s words. That both of them have to deal unofficially with a safe and secured trauma which has no business manifesting itself in an angel or a demon – especially a demon, the Fall was not without reason as painful and soul shattering as it was. It was not meant to be overshadowed by something else –, including some nice anxiety attacks with hyperventilation if one of them finds himself alone, doesn’t stop the angel from scolding their old respective management floor at least internally.

[5] it would most definitely not be enough for _him_

[6] that technically doesn’t even require said oxygen

[7] even if this metaphor is not that far off from reality

[8] No, he knows, he would. It’s Crowley he’s talking about. That concentrated ball of chaos on two legs would knock him off his feet with a creation of such beauty way beyond words if he demolished the emotional dams from one day to next.

[9] not only breathe, but survive. He is not even trying to sell this to himself as anything else and it’s not like he would hold any value on being a good seller of anything

[10] not the real Heaven, more of the human concept of Heaven and this makes it gloriously wonderful

[11] from a tree which really had been way too obvious in the middle of the street

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfiction in aeons because Good Omens was the only cure for the comatose muse to wake up - so here we are, little angel on withdrawel.  
> Thank you for finding your way here ♡
> 
> English is not my first language, this had to happen in German first and was translated afterwards but the result feels wonderful and the right amount of soft (also because it's edited/beta-ed by a lovely English Lady) ♥
> 
> Link to german Version: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21628684


End file.
